“Not having a passport makes me very blasé about what appears in foreign periodicals since I know I'll never see it.” Quote by David Foster Wallace
“America, as everybody knows, is a country of many contradictions, and a big contradiction for a long time has been between a very aggressive form of capitalism and consumerism against what might be called a kind of moral or civic impulse.” KnowsKindLongHas BeensCountryBigsMightAmericaFormMoralLong TimeCapitalismImpulseContradictionAggressiveConsumerismCivics Author:David Foster Wallace
“Many people in America throw the term "fascism" around, particularly for Middle-Eastern terrorists, but in fact what fascism really is is a close alliance between a unitary executive and a state and large corporations and a state.” PeopleStatesFactsAmericaTermMiddleTerroristCorporationsExecutivesFascismEasternAlliances Author:David Foster Wallace
“My personal belief is that because technology and economic logic has gotten so sophisticated, cruelties can be perpetrated now that would have been unimaginable two or three hundred years ago.” YearsHas BeensTwoThreeBeliefTechnologyEconomicHundredYears AgoLogicCrueltySophisticatedUnimaginablePersonal Beliefs Author:David Foster Wallace
“I was trained mainly as a short story writer and that's how I started writing, but I've also become very interested in non-fiction, just because I got a couple of magazine jobs when I was really poor and needed the money and it turned out that non-fiction was much more interesting than I thought it was.” WritingStoriesJobsInterestingPoorFictionCoupleNeededMagazinesShort StoryNon FictionStory Writers Author:David Foster Wallace
“My father was really good with math. It's a funny thing, I don't remember my father or my mother being so mechanical-minded. My father always wanted to be a doctor, but he came from a really poor family in Georgia, and there was no way he was going to be a doctor.” WayWantedRememberMotherFatherPoorDoctorsMathFunny ThingsGeorgiaPoor Family Author:Herbie Hancock
“I tend to think of fiction as being mainly about characters and human beings and inner experience, whereas essays can be much more expository and didactic and more about subjects or ideas.” ThinkingHumansIdeasCharacterHuman BeingsFictionSubjectsEssaysDidactic Author:David Foster Wallace
“If some people read my fiction and see it as fundamentally about philosophical ideas, what it probably means is that these are pieces where the characters are not as alive and interesting as I meant them to be.” PeopleIfsMeanIdeasCharacterInterestingFictionPiecesAlivePhilosophical Author:David Foster Wallace
“I know I never work in whatever gets called an office, e.g., a school office I use only for meeting students and storing books I know I'm not going to read anytime soon.” KnowsBookUseSchoolStudentsOfficeMeetings Author:David Foster Wallace
“We live today in a world where most of the really important developments in everything from math and physics and astronomy to public policy and psychology and classical music are so extremely abstract and technically complex and context-dependent that it's next to impossible for the ordinary citizen to feel that they (the developments) have much relevance to her actual life.” WorldFeelsImportantTodayNextPsychologyImpossiblePolicyDevelopmentCitizensOrdinaryComplexesMathPhysicsAstronomyAbstractDependentRelevanceClassical MusicLive For TodayPublic PolicyOrdinary CitizensActual Life Author:David Foster Wallace
“Without the church it's like having a boat without the rudder. You think you can do it on your own and this may sound pedestrian or trite but I'll equate it to this: all my life I've been involved with exercise but no matter how much - and I know a great deal about the body - you need help. You need a trainer. You need to go to a gym and you need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself. I feel the same way about Christianity and what the church is. The church is the gym of the soul.” ThinkingKnowsWayNeedsFeelsMaySoulMatterHelpingBodySoundCan DoChurchDealsChristianityInvolvedExerciseTrainBoatGuidanceGymYou Can Do ItExpertiseTrainersNeed HelpPedestriansRudders Author:Sylvester Stallone